Welcome to the Silent World
by Archer of Ecclesia
Summary: The landscape around her was far from home. Very, very far. She felt its farness in her heart. She wasn't in the Upside Down. She wasn't home, either.


**A/N: I haven't published for a very long time. I've been very busy, and honestly, I didn't care for writing. But now I'm back.**

 **I have an explanation as to how this works after the story, I don't want to spoil anything.**

Everything was dark. Everything. It was a cold, wet dark, like the dark from the bath, not the fleece, soft dark of Mike's fort.

At first, it was also quiet, like the isolation quiet of the bath, not the comfortable quiet of Mike's house.

Nothing was like Mike's, it was just the opposite of Mike's.

"Mike," Eleven whined.

The quiet eventually ebbed away and was replaced by a dull, droning noise. The dark dissipated with the quiet. Eleven wasn't aware she had been previously unable to move and was beginning to swim in her head.

She tried to move and began to panic when the dawning power remained unavailable to her. "Mike," Eleven's whine grew more desperate.

Pain came in ebbs. At first it was intense, it was the only thing she felt. It started in her head and bled through the rest of her body, her heart pumping it mindlessly from her arms to the tips of her fingers. Pain nestled into her knees like a bird building a home, the bird having a family that migrated to her ankles, elbows, and everywhere else.

Gradually, it died down. The birds went extinct as they died in a cold that assailed Eleven like another pain born anew.

Movement came for the first time as she curled herself into a fetal position to warm up. She opened her eyes and color flooded her vision for the first time since the red flooded her vision as she had said goodbye to Mike.

Everything was gray. It was a metallic gray, like the gray form the lab, not the gray of Mike's radios or action figures. The gray gave way to red rusts and putrid colors unknown to most.

She pushed herself up, her arm shaking untrustingly. She stood, finally.

Flakes of rust fell from her dress. The landscape around her was far from home. Very, very far. She felt its farness in her heart. She wasn't in the Upside Down. She wasn't home, either.

She felt that she would be safe there. The Demogorgon, had she been unable to kill it, would be stuck there for the rest of eternity, unable to plague Mike and Eleven's other friends any longer.

"Well, well. It's not a usual occurrence that we get visitors like yourself, young lady," a voice from behind her came.

Eleven started to turn around slowly. She observed the fissures belching steam around her, the bent guard rails, the broken-down cars. The man standing before her didn't seem to fit as she observed him, then the background, then him again. Although, not much could be seen through the thick fog that hung in the air like a perched, predatory bird.

"Mailman?" she asked, very confused.

"Yes, I'm a delivery man, al'right," he responded, laughing. There was a silence that followed his sincere laugh that made everything seem wrong. "There's no polite way to ask this, but what exactly are you doin' here?"

Silence filled the air again. It was so quiet, it seemed like off in the distance, there were masses of people crying and wailing. The garble of radio talk followed. All of the noise had vanished within a blink. Eleven remained quiet, unable to answer. When she realized that the man wasn't bad, and wasn't leaving, she glanced around again to make herself feel safe again. "Hiding."

"This isn't the ideal place to hide." Without warning, the man shifted his massive mailbag to his other hip and began to walk. Eleven moved from her weak support against a rusty guardrail and began to follow him.

"Hiding," she repeated. "Demogorgon."

Upon inspection, the Demogorgon was nowhere to be seen. Eleven had, of course, known this in the back of her mind, but there was truly no sight of it. There was no blood, assuming that it even bled. There was no imprint of a massive body in the litters of fallen leaves skirting the entire town. "Gone?"

"Nothin' really disappears around here." The mailman kept walking.

There was just road at first. Eleven and the mailman slowly came upon what seemed like a town. There was a gas station on the left, a giant fissure up ahead, and an unrecognizable building further past the absent section of road.

 _Mike jumped, taking a leap of faith to save Dustin. Eleven's heart soared out of her chest and she caught him before she could think of what she was doing._

"You'll be fallin' a long way if you get any closer to that," the man stated. "Are you goin' to tell me why you're hidin' here?"

"Demogorgon."

"Why here?" the man asked, his voice not getting any firmer, any meaner, just more curious.

"Safe here. It will stay."

The mailman nodded as if he understood what Eleven was (not exactly) rambling on about. "Here's how this works. This is a town that's very special. It's almost what you'd call an invite-only place," he laughed. "My job is invitin' people here to teach them a lesson. Or, rather, they secretly want to teach themselves a lesson and I just encourage them. I can tell by lookin' at your head that you've done nothing wrong." There was another silence. "You don't deserve an invite."

"Monster," Eleven whispered, pointing fingers shaped like a gun to her temple. She made eye contact with the mailman to point out her emphasis.

"You're gifted. Not a monster. And I think you know that just as well as I do. Why don't you go back home?"

Eleven kept walking aimlessly. Her pale body was slowly regaining tint as blood pumped through her body again. "Tired."

The mailman nodded. "You've got nothin' to fear here. I wouldn't recommend that you stay, but you're in no immediate danger."

With that, the mailman began to whistle as he approached a rusty mailbox, pried it open, and placed a neatly pressed letter from his bag inside. "I don't think you'll be needin' me much. Now, if you don't mind, I have a very special invitation that needs to be sent out."

The man tipped his hat and continued to walk down the street, whistling an oddly cheery tune. Eleven stood and stared. Within moments, the thick fog had swallowed him whole, quicker than the Demogorgon's many jaws.

The mailman disappeared, and in a quick disappearance, not unlike the way she had disappeared from Mike and everyone else.

A figure moved in the distance.

"Mike?"

 **Explanation, as promised: The way I see this piece is that Silent Hill is only entered when you 'have an invite', as Blackwood explained. Eleven, of course, didn't know this, and just traveled there to hide because she felt that the place had a mysterious aura, much like herself, and felt comforted by that. She also felt that the Demogorgon would be trapped there, like the rest of the monsters. She was too innocent to suffer the town's judgement and these were the only things she registered when she was casting herself and the Demogorgon elsewhere.**

 **Sorry this is so short and open-ended, but it felt best like this.**


End file.
